


you made an impression (i still feel the bruise)

by spacenarwhal



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Loneliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 10:54:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13075374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenarwhal/pseuds/spacenarwhal
Summary: Foggy says: “My mom told me she’s setting a place for you at the table.”And his heart hiccups, a tiny inconsistency in the otherwise steadfast thudding that keeps time with the hum of electronics in the room, the current in the walls, the wind that breaks against their windows.And there’s a part of Matt that wants to take the easy path, grin and nod, say yes. But all Matt hears is the shiver in Foggy’s heart, the jolt of a lie in the telling, and it makes something unpleasant squeeze around his throat.





	you made an impression (i still feel the bruise)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackmetaldahlia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackmetaldahlia/gifts).



Foggy says: “My mom told me she’s setting a place for you at the table.”

And his heart hiccups, a tiny inconsistency in the otherwise steadfast thudding that keeps time with the hum of electronics in the room, the current in the walls, the wind that breaks against their windows. 

And there’s a part of Matt that wants to take the easy path, grin and nod, say yes. But all Matt hears is the shiver in Foggy’s heart, the jolt of a lie in the telling, and it makes something unpleasant squeeze around his throat. 

He’s never liked charity. 

“Give her my best but I—uh—have this thing I have to do. At Saint Agnes.” He smiles then and hopes it’ll smooth any kind of sting Foggy might feel at the rejection. 

Bringing up Saint Agnes works like Matt knew it would, Foggy bows out gracefully enough, switches their conversation over to their upcoming con law final and how he’ll never write again after that exam.

Matt doesn’t feel disappointed that Foggy doesn’t try harder to convince him to come. 

-

Finals are merciless.

Matt and Foggy burn the midnight oil along with every other resident on their floor and Matt plugs his ears with everything that’s ever worked to dampen the chaotic melee of the rest of the world. He can still hear the guy two rooms over sobbing into a pillow and a group of girls quizzing each in the student lounge by the elevators. Foggy taps his pencil on his textbook as he reads and Matt clenches his teeth against the impatient snarl trapped in his throat as he runs his fingers over his ancient screen reader. 

Foggy buys them disgusting energy drinks that taste like every chemical Matt’s ever consumed, artificial and sharp, Matt can practically taste the neon as he chugs. Foggy burps and Matt laughs hysterically, throws his empty can haphazardly in Foggy’s direction and Foggy cheers when Matt lands a hit. Matt throws his arms up in victory, head spinning. Sugar rush, adrenaline rush, the rush of impending doom going round and round inside his brain. 

Matt wakes up to Foggy mumbling to himself, part prep-talk, part review, part aimless despair, it all mixes together under his breath. Matt drifts back to sleep praying they survive.

They do.

The day of their last final exam they stumble into each other outside their building and Foggy throws his arms around Matt with only a courtesy warning. “I’m coming in buddy.” He says and then Matt’s gathered close, nose pressed against the chilled exterior of Foggy’s jacket, glasses digging into the bridge of his cold-numb nose. He sniffs, Foggy’s shampoo and coffee and sweat and a little bit of weed caught in the collar of Foggy’s coat. Foggy’s arms are steady around him and his heart thuds relieved and exhausted in Matt’s ears. The song of it matches Matt’s own. 

Matt’s gloved hands fumble at Foggy’s sides and then cross over his back, his own arms awkwardly pinned by Foggy’s. 

“We should eat.” Matt says, voice muffled, body slumping against Foggy, ignoring Matt in favor of no longer having to hold itself upright anymore. 

“We should drink.” Foggy answers thoughtfully, chin hitting the side of Matt’s face as he talks.

“Yeah.” Matt agrees, not trying to get out of Foggy’s grasp. 

“Yeah.” Foggy echoes, still not letting Matt go. 

They don’t move for another long moment. When they do, they turn towards the building door, ride the elevator upstairs arm in arm and fall face first into their respective beds. Matt sleeps nearly ten hours, undisturbed and dreamless. 

In the morning they walk to a nearby diner and buy each other pancakes. Matt feels so light he raises his coffee cup when Foggy demands they drink to their first semester of law school. The clinking of their cups reverberates through the bones in Matt’s fingers. 

-

It isn’t long before Foggy is packing his bags. “Not taking any of these merciless bastards.” He says, referring to his study materials by his preferred nickname, and Matt hears the scattered thud of heavy books being knocked over, their pages stuck together by the sheer weight of them. Foggy’s stands in satisfied silence for a second, probably admiring his own work in a delayed display of dominance. At his desk Matt’s mouth twists. “Good riddance.”

“Fuck yes.” Foggy says, already bending over to set the pile right, neat and out of the way of the door or anywhere Matt might walk. “Think I can get back what I paid on these bad boys when I sell them?” He asks ruefully and Matt swallows the spiky feeling prickling at the back of his mouth, twists his lips into a grin. “Maybe enough to buy some beer.” 

Foggy moves, loose hair shifting as he nods. “Booze fund. I’ll take it.”

There’s the rustle of clothing being shoved into a bag, Foggy chattering nervously the whole while as Matt sits still and out of the way. 

“So I, um, I’m heading out. I—” he pats at Matt’s shoulder. It’s almost comical how awkwardly the touch lands. Foggy’s never been shy with physical affection. Matt never realized how long he’d gone without touch until Foggy started doling out hugs and casual touches days into their acquaintance. It was almost too much at first, can still sometimes boarder on too much, but Matt finds he misses it too when he goes without these days. 

Foggy clears his throat, unsure. “Call me. Or I’ll call you. Just, uh, just train ride away if you change your mind. Merry Christmas Matty.” 

Matt rises to his feet, one hand clasping Foggy’s arm. Foggy huffs a surprised breath when Matt crowds close, pulls Foggy into a one arm hug. He claps Foggy on the back. “Have fun, Fog.”

Foggy’s hand presses between Matt’s shoulder blades for a lingering second before he pulls away. “Take care Murdock. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Or do. Whatever’s more fun.”

Matt pushes at his shoulders, and their laughter fills the doorway as Foggy leaves.

-

The floor empties. 

The building empties. 

By the end of the weekend its just Matt and whoever it is still working the check in desk, listening to a Philip K. Dick novel on audio for the majority of their shift. By Monday the book’s done and Matt can hear the steady flipping of pages. He makes sure to wish them a happy holiday whenever he walks by the front desk. 

He buys a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter and some bruised fruit at the bodega a few blocks over, mindful of his almost entirely depleted meal plan. It won’t be recharged until the new semester begins in January which means Matt is best off making due with whatever will keep the longest in his dorm.

The first weekday after the end of the semester Matt walks the campus, wanders mostly aimlessly between buildings and down pathways that are usually jammed with students. He sits on the library steps for a while, cane folded over his knees, listens to the wind cutting through the tree branches, breaking against the exteriors of empty buildings. The campus rattles like a hollow shell without students crowding every aspect of it, the cold amplified by stonework, cement, and emptiness. 

In the room Matt cleans his desk, washes laundry, mediates. He does push ups and sit ups and jumping jacks and, just once, just for fun, he vaults over his bed and runs the perimeter of the room, dodging furniture and balancing on the back of a chair before finally flipping back onto Foggy’s bed. His heart races in his chest but Matt’s barely out of breath. It’s been a long time since he’s done anything like that. It’s nice to know he still has it in him. 

He thinks of Stick and wonders, in the faint, fuzzy way he still sometimes does against all better judgement, where he might be now. If he’s still out there, training someone else to fight in his war, or if he got himself killed over it by now. It chills the spark of excitement in Matt’s blood and he rolls over, face pressed to Foggy’s bedding for a second. It smells like state cheese puffs and sweat and somewhere under that the fabric sheets Foggy’s mother used to wash their bedding when they went over for Thanksgiving dinner. It makes the achy feeling in Matt’s stomach’s grow. He pushes himself off the bed all together, goes in search of something else to do. 

-

Matt keeps the window closed and the lights turned off and someone walking in might think he’s shutting himself off into a depressed stupor but the reality is that it’s nice to go without the humming of the lightbulb directly overheard for entire days at a time and it’s nice to sleep without his shirt chafing over his chest and the collar catching at his throat whenever he turns. 

This is the closest he’s ever been to living alone and there’s a degree of freedom to knowing he’s alone, to doing whatever he wants whenever he wants to. It’s different from being alone because Dad was out fighting or being alone because the nuns didn’t know what to do with him or because the other kids didn’t want to include him in their games. It’s nice to go without the grin he wears while trying to keep the whole world manageable every second of the day, to exist without apology or care or excuse. 

It’s nice.

It’s almost nice enough to make him forget the part where being alone means feeling lonely. 

Almost but not quite.

-

The problem is Foggy.

(The problem will almost always be Foggy. Other people will come and go, others will join ranks and occupy the position alongside him, but Foggy sets the precedent, remains the reigning champion of Matt’s interpersonal relationships by virtue of seniority and care.)

The problem is how Foggy isn’t a problem at all, not by a long shot, because Matt knows the real problem is sitting alone and feeling like there’s no one, knowing that there’s no one. A whole city teeming with people and not a single one who cares. 

Matt knows what is it is to be alone and he knows this isn’t it. Foggy’s been gone six days and Matt knows with a reassuring degree of certainty that he’ll be back in January.

The majority of Foggy’s things still clutter the room and his bedding is still spread out on the bed and the books he promised to sell for their beer fund are still poking out haphazardly from the furniture on his side of the room. He left a packet of pudding cups in the fridge and magnanimously announced Matt could have them as a Christmas present. 

Foggy will be back.

And Matt, for better or for worse, has spent the majority of his life on his own. He doesn’t need Foggy to come back. 

But fuck, does Matt want him to. 

-

_You miss him_ says a thin unamused voice at the back of Matt head while he lies in bed, the windows shut tight and his blankets twisted around his ankles. The second-hand sheets scratch against his back so Matt rolls over, lies on his belly with his arms beneath his head. _Chump move Matty_ says the voice and Matt wills it to shut up. 

His breathing, unaccompanied and solitary, echoes in the room. 

-

On Christmas morning he makes himself presentable and makes the walk to the Church of the Ascension. The streets are bustling like New York City streets always are, people hurrying about their business—relatives on their way to holiday gatherings and tourists trying to find their way back to midtown and harried parishioners rushing to morning services—and Matt listens to them move around him after what feels like a millennium on his own. 

He’d almost taken the train down to Hell’s Kitchen, thought about going back to Saint Angus and making an appearance at the Christmas lunch the orphanage holds every year for the children, past and present, but the thought made his stomach twist unpleasantly.

He hasn’t been back since he left at eighteen. Maybe next year, he thinks, taking a seat at a far back pew. Everything smells of pine and candlewax and incense, so thick it coats his tongue and settles at the back of his throat. He folds his cane and sets it on the pew besides him. 

The first note of an organ fills the cavernous room and all over people rise, lifting their voices in welcome. Matt and dozens of strangers take to their feet in unison.

-

He’s half asleep when he answers his phone. 

“Don’t tell me you’re already partied out, man.” Foggy crows over the line, voice fuzzy with electricity or distance, Matt can’t be sure. 

He fumbles for his laptop, pauses the documentary he was listening to. He touches the face of his watch. It’s almost four. 

“Barely.” Matt answers, a grin Foggy can’t see twitching at the corners of his mouth. “How’s it going?”

There’s rustling but Matt can’t for the life of him guess at what Foggy’s doing, waits for the exhale that precedes a response. “No complaints. There’s a whole lot of people here but there’s also a fuckton of food that was never freeze-dried so, y’know, you take the good, you take the bad.”

“Facts of life.” Matt says sagely and over the line Foggy laughs, a sharp crack of amusement. Matt’s smile grows at the sound. 

“Exactly. I knew you’d get it Murdock.” Foggy hums, low, it shivers in Matt’s ear. “So my parents are taking Candace and the rest of the littles out for winter activities tomorrow and since I don’t want to be a babysitter unless I’m getting paid I was thinking of staying behind. Got room in your busy schedule for lunch with your roommate?” He sounds nervous, as cautious as his hand felt on Matt’s shoulder before he left. All these months later and Foggy’s still steeling himself for rejection. 

Matt picks at the corner of his laptop, nail tracing a groove in the plastic casing. 

“Let me check.” Matt says, swallowing the prickly joy, the rush of euphoria that rises over him at the prospect. “I think I could squeeze you in.” 

Foggy chuckles again and Matt feels warm, blood pooling high in his face and up the back of his neck. He’s familiar with the pins-and-needles flush of affection, but he’s new to this, this heady swell of something he can’t quite call by name. Warmth and happiness and fondness, given and received, something shared with another person after all the years of solitary existence. 

“Thank you Mr Murdock, sir, I really appreciate the time.” Foggy says dryly and Matt huffs a laugh. 

“For you, Mr Nelson, any time.”

The End 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays, sending out all my love and best wishes. 
> 
> Title from _Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise_ by the Mountain Goats.


End file.
